RUDIMENTS, pt. 192
Making Cars
I always wondered about space -
not the stars and heavens stuff, I
mean the space and place around
us. It was always puzzling to me -
'space' was filled with 'things.'
'Stuff.' 'Objects.' The sorts of
material, (by agreement, I guess,
if everyone says it's there), that
we then had to concern ourselves
with and over; all these weird sorts
of concerns and categories, some of
which certain sorts of people would
fight and die over. It was all so
artificial to me. And that was really
only the half of it because there
were, as well, myriads of people
willing to fight and die for things
that DIDN'T exist yet which, again
by some form of common agreement,
were accepted as 'being there.' Ideas,
like, Divinity, the forms of any of
a hundred 'Gods' and deities, those
of one-nature, three-natures, human
form, non-human form, commands,
dictates, geographies, lordships and
kingships. These things affected
millions, quite literally dead millions,
over years and years of quarrel,
violence, and travail. How to figure?
Did space exist if there were no
'humans' within it? To fight over it?
Back in 1979 or '80, when my son was
going though some local school system,
one of his teachers - 2nd or 3rd grade,
was bragging one day about her own
son - who was in some big college or
university somewhere, studying law.
Her great pride was that he'd decided
on his concentration, in 'Space Law.'
Which she said was a new, wide-open,
burgeoning field (almost a pun, there)
of law - unknown and yet to be written,
in fact - and by which her son stood
to reap a grand career and make millions,
in new and untested waters (again, not
really waters, but space. I guess water
would be the 'old' school of maritime law.
Funny stuff everywhere). All of a sudden,
space travel and exploration and the
shooting of all those objects off into
space was necessitating order and laws
and boundaries. He wished to be in on
all that - I don't know how any of it
turned out, but I guess it's now a field
of law. Putting boundaries and regulations
on open fields of the cosmos does seem
a bit Human-pretentious, but I suppose
linear-minds would need that stuff. In
any case, sitting there on parent-night or
whatever it was, I couldn't help but almost
take offense at the braggadocio of what
I considered and vain and foolish, and
very categorized and dull, 'teacher' of
my kid. Funny, I realized you can't
un-do any of that stuff. Whatever
assigned teacher your kid is forced
into, that's the breaks. I would have
had him removed, but schooling within
the government-school format is coercive,
and back then the system of home-school
and charter school things didn't exist as
an option, if it is, and if it does now.
-
But, anyway, certainly space-law would
be in the category of 'take advantage of'
law,' for sure: 'Here's something new I
can avail myself of, and make a bundle.'
Such lousy thinking. Exploitative.
-
The flip side of this was that I knew
a person had to keep order, and that
order had to be taught. It's a form
of personal habit, if nothing else,
that allows for productive completion.
Much of my own life, present-state
included, would be nothing if I had
not the means of ordering, even if by
stupid number and list format - most
probably the worst and most meager
way - all my things, writings, art
and the rest. The mass-mind now,
of Mankind itself, has determined
and produced automatic ways of
getting all this done - these posts
and photos being a prime example.
I need little worry, and it's mostly
done for me. Proclaiming, declaring,
and maintaining the same operative
sort of thinking for 'space' gets a
bit weird. But, perhaps, so did all
this 'virtual' ordering appear when it
all began - computer-archiving,
numbering, filing, etc. I guess
some things are invisible and remain
so, while others do eventually take
form and start showing up.
-
When I see a hawk falling through
space, swiftly and in form, to alight
upon its prey and take off again with
it in its clutches, just as swiftly, I
have to wonder : what 'Space' is
all that, and who or what orders
that space? Do different logics,
then, obey and have their own laws?
The hawk wants to eat. The small
squirrel, in turn, wants to live.
-
Stand in front of a pointillist painting,
for instance, up close. From that sort
of 'space' you see nothing but many dots
and slashes of painted color. It's not until
you step back some, and quite some,
sometimes, that you see the scene of a
pleasant picnic. Our bodies and selves,
at any one moment, are 'attuned' to a
hundred different things, and - like
consciousness itself - it's only the one
we 'concentrate' upon that we actually
see. Something is shaved, each time,
from the stubbly face of perception,
and that's then what we begin to call
our world - even that space which,
until now, apparently, had none of
those borders and limits. We can adapt
to that attunement - and we do -
without even being conscious of it.
Most people will just see a 'line.'
The sign-painter guy will see a
poorly-drafted and flawed line not
quite up to its job. It's like politics,
almost, and that's how people 'vote' -
by what they see. You have to first
be 'tuned in'
-
Having a body puts us in space. There
would be no such thing as space if we
did not have a body. Are these just
conjectures, or truly ideas? Space has
us, first, within our bodies so that other
things are seen or found in relation
to 'us.' We don't much relate to things
if it's not to us. Walking into a biker bar,
for instance, to be faced with a ballet
playing on the large-screen TV up on
the wall, would make little sense but
to ire the inhabitants of that bar -
because it would bear no 'relation'
to their senses of self. It's by that
'sense' of self and place that we
find our ways of operating. They
have to be in harmony, and jive
with, our ideas, otherwise it is
quite uncomfortable, and bad
things begin happening - like
conflict, anger, bombast, wars.
-
In any case, as I think about it here's
an idea. You know what 'space' is to
me? It's this quandary, to be faced:
I'm driving down the highway, at
55 or 60mph. Scanning the road
ahead, I see an accident occurring.
Two cars hit wildly, one spinning
off, and the other flipping, and, on
its roof, sliding clearly towards me.
I can move, and have sensed the
situation developing; yet, in my
space, if I move to avoid the
oncoming collision, there's a
car behind me with a lady driving,
two kids in the seats, and a baby
in the carrier on the seat - they will
be hit in my place, am I to move to
avoid my own collision. Which space
do I, or should I, inhabit? That's
what 'space' is to me.
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